


The Four-Day Snowball Fight

by ariadnes_string



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Childhood Memories, Collection: Purimgifts Day 3, Gen, Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-06
Updated: 2015-03-06
Packaged: 2018-03-16 12:57:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3489089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariadnes_string/pseuds/ariadnes_string
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tommy asks Ada for a favor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Four-Day Snowball Fight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blueteak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueteak/gifts).



> Chag Purim, blueteak! I loved so many of your prompts--I'm sorry I only had time to write a few of them.

“Tell me again why we’re doing this,” Ada says.

She understands already, of course, but the pleasure of making Tommy explain it again, making him go over why he’s had to promise her heaven and earth to get her to drive back to Birmingham with him, is too great to resist.

“Because the Marshes will only deal with you,” he says, masterfully keeping the resentment out of his voice.

“And why will they only deal with me?”

“Because they don’t trust anybody but you and Polly, because you did right by them during the war.” 

“And they think you’re—?”

“—a jumped up little nobody who’s forgotten where he came from, and would steal the currants out of a child’s Christmas pudding given half a chance.” Tommy recites the words dutifully, staring straight ahead.

“That’s right.” Ada makes a satisfied noise. “It really is too bad you need them to renew the lease the same exact week Polly managed to get Michael to go on holiday with her.”

“Ada,” he says, and he sounds so exhausted and put upon that she relents. Though really, is it her fault that Tommy’s chosen method of persuasion—tell people what’s he’s decided will happen and look daggers at them when they don’t toe the line—doesn’t work on everyone? 

She remembers the Marshes during the war: a frail, church-going couple, living off the rent of their downstairs rooms, which some wicked fate had placed directly next door to the Shelbys. They’d lost a son and two nephews at the Somme. Their daughter had gone to work in a munitions factory in London and never come back. 

She and Polly had kept an eye on them—sent Finn over to shovel the walk when it snowed, made sure they got fresh meat and eggs once in a while—but then they’d kept an eye on lots of people in those days. Funny how those bonds still endured. Funny how the world hadn’t seemed the same since.

She looks at Tommy now. His face is still as a statue’s, only his pupils moving as he tracks the road. He talks about the family business, but he hates consulting with them about his plans, hates it even more when he has to ask for help. Was it the war that did that to him or was he always like that? It makes her more sad than angry, at least today.

“Tom,” she says, because the memory of Finn clearing the Marshes' stoop has made her think of it. “Do you remember the four-day snow ball fight?”

His concentration doesn’t break, but his lips curl up a fraction of a degree, and the corners of his eyes crinkle. “I do. What a little hellion you were, Ada.”

It had been a massive storm, the whole city in chaos, and no one to notice if you borrowed a pair of your brother’s trousers and skived off school. Days of snow forts and ambushes, secret alliances and sledding down the slag heaps. They’d played girls against boys: her, Mabel Marsh, the Rogers girls, and Rosa Thorne against Tommy, Arthur, John, Sid Marsh, and Freddie.

She remembers pushing Freddie into a snow bank and sitting on him until he cried uncle. How she’d laughed, how furious he’d been, his cheeks like pink carnations. Was that when she’d first noticed him? When he first noticed her?

Beside her in the car, Tommy’s mind seems to follow the same path, because he takes a hand off the steering wheel and covers one of hers with it. “I miss him, too,” he says.

For a moment, he takes his eyes off the road, and looks at her. And in that instant, Ada imagines she sees all the loss and yearning that he usually keeps hidden. Then her own eyes blur and she has to rummage in her bag with her free hand for a handkerchief.

Ada sniffs and dabs at her eyes. They’ll be in Birmingham soon, and she’ll have tea with the Marshes, pet their ancient terrier, and agree that London really is a dreadful city, and who would believe what young people get up to these days. Then she’ll convince them that Tommy Shelby, though a very wicked man, doesn’t plan to knife them in their beds, at least not in the foreseeable future, not if she has anything to do with it. They’ll reluctantly agree to let him renew the lease, and the Shelby empire will continue to grow.

But now Tommy is asking her if she remembers how Kitty Rogers made Arthur squeal, slipping that snow ball down his neck. His hand is warm over hers, and he has more of a smile on his face than she's seen for months. The road slides by outside the windows, harmless, and Ada decides she's glad she came with him, after all. 

**Author's Note:**

> Image of the winter of 1908 from [this page](http://www.swanageandwarehamvoice.co.uk/news/11652930.Forget_the__weatherbomb____here_are_24_pictures_of_the_worst_snow_Dorset_s_ever_seen/).


End file.
